He appeared as a personage in the world, political and financial.

Du Tillet presented him to the Nucingens.

Madame de Nucingen received him cordially, less for himself than for Madame de Vandenesse; but when she ventured a few words about the countess he thought himself marvellously clever in using Florine as a shield; he alluded to his relations with the actress in a tone of generous self-conceit.

How could he desert a great devotion, for the coquetries of the faubourg Saint-Germain?
Nathan, manipulated by Nucingen and Rastignac, by du Tillet and Blondet, gave his support ostentatiously to the "doctrinaires" of their new and ephemeral cabinet.

But in order to show himself pure of all bribery he refused to take advantage of certain profitable enterprises which were started by means of his paper,--he! who had no reluctance in compromising friends or in behaving with little decency to mechanics under certain circumstances.